Brendan Nyhan
Dartmouth College
- Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires understanding what information people have about the disease and how officials can improve public knowledge and encourage behaviors that will protect public health. By measuring COVID-19 beliefs and attitudes, this study provides insights into public beliefs about COVID-19 and the efficacy of government and health messaging about the pandemic, and how those quantities change over time. In addition to measuring respondents’ knowledge about COVID-19, the research team assesses how people’s online media consumption is related to their patterns of knowledge. Finally, the study provides information about the effectiveness of public health messages on respondents’ knowledge about COVID-19 and support for public health policies.
- The research team is collecting behavioral and survey data from Americans in a multi-wave nationally representative survey. This survey includes oversamples of respondents who live in areas with high numbers of COVID-19 cases and who have voluntarily agreed to provide data on their online browsing activity. Each wave measures both the prevalence of different types of beliefs about COVID-19 and reported support for and adherence to recommendations from public health authorities. To evaluate responses to information from public health officials, the second survey wave includes a randomized experiment evaluating the effects of messaging from health and medical authorities. Finally, the study characterizes the information people consume online about the pandemic by analyzing the behavioral data provided by respondents using a combination of human-coded and machine learning approaches.